LOCAL VEGAS POKER NEWS

I decided to undertake this blog effort after considerable encouragement and harassment from various family and staff members. I will make every effort to be timely with my entries, offer content that is interesting and related to the Las Vegas poker scene and supplement the journal entries with photos. I will provide details of my background as we progress with the project; so, let’s get started.
I begin playing poker in Las Vegas so long ago that the first time I played was in a three table room at the long-gone Dunes Hotel managed by the late Johnnie Moss. The game was $1-3 7-card stud with quarter antes. I did not win that first time but played about four hours before most of my initial twenty dollar buy-in was gone. An interesting note here: the room used twenty-five cent chips for the antes. I managed to keep a few over the years since going to the cage and standing in line with the high-rollers for a quarter was rather embarrassing. A couple of years ago I sold one of the chips on eBay for $190.00. Guess I won after all.
Played poker last night at Sam’s Town here in Las Vegas and finally had a winning session after a few weeks of absolute card drought and just plain bad luck on the river. I played in a $4-8 structured hold’em game for about four hours and left with just over two hundred in winnings. My best hand all night was a nut ace high heart flush. I had pocket aces once and raised the blinds with no callers. The largest pot of my session was taken with a big blind off suit Q-7. Flopped the top two pair against slow played pocket aces and jacks.
Much more interesting than my game was the really big game in the back corner. When I got to the poker room the corner game was six handed with the following players: Bobby Baldwin, Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Lyle Berman, Chou and Gus Hansen. The blinds were $3-6,000. Some of the observed pots would buy a very nice house, even in the inflated Las Vegas housing market. I believe the minimum buy-in is $100K. The current game has been going since Friday with high end players regularly coming in and out. On Friday Phil Ivy, World Poker Tour winner and celebrity, played for a few hours and managed to hold his own with the very tough old-timers. This very high limit game has been spread at Sam’s Town for a couple of years. We have been reporting on this game at LasVegasVegas News since its’ inception.
I have to go downtown and get some information on the upcoming World Series of Poker.Later.